Chinese company Baidu has applied for a patent for artificial intelligence (AI) technology that can translate animal sounds into human speech, the South China Morning Post reported on Wednesday.
Baidu reportedly filed the patent application back in December, but the Chinese Intellectual Property Office only published it on Tuesday.
The patent describes a method for capturing data from animals - vocalizations, body language, behavioral changes and other biological signals - in order to detect their emotional state and
to capture their emotional state and then translate it into a specific human language.
According to Baidu, the system uses several branches of AI, such as machine learning, deep learning and natural language processing.
If the system recognizes a sound that does not match historical data, researchers manually label the input to retrain the model.
Although the application reveals considerable technical ambition, it does not indicate when or if Baidu intends to commercialize the technology.
Publication of the filing does not guarantee approval. You Yunting, senior partner at law firm Shanghai Debund, said the review process could take one to three years, or even longer in more complex cases.
